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OpenAIOpenAISan Francisco, CA

Software Engineer, API Agents

Build core backend infrastructure and shared agent harness for OpenAI's next-generation agents, powering long-running workflows with capabilities in search, memory, tool use, multi-agent coordination, and safe execution. Requires 7+ years backend engineering experience with strong systems design and product judgment.

293k – 385k/yr
On-site7+ YOEBackend Engineering

About the role

Responsibilities

  • Design, build, and operate the shared agent harness and backend infrastructure that power long-running, high-value workflows across OpenAI and third-party products.
  • Build reusable capabilities across search and connected context, computer use, memory, tool execution, delegation, subagents, and multi-agent orchestration.
  • Establish the foundations agents need to operate safely in production, including secure execution environments, identity and permissions, observability, evaluations, reliability, and cost and latency efficiency.
  • Partner with Research, Codex, infrastructure, applied product teams, and external developers to translate model progress, traces, evaluations, and real workflow needs into shared capabilities and measurable gains in task completion, cost, and latency.

Requirements

  • 7+ years of professional engineering experience, excluding internships, in relevant backend, infrastructure, platform, or product-driven engineering roles.
  • Exceptional backend engineering fundamentals and a track record of leading complex systems from ambiguous problem statements to reliable production services.
  • Proficiency in one or more backend languages such as Python, Go, Rust, TypeScript, or similar, with the ability to move comfortably across service, platform, and product boundaries.
  • Strong systems design and operational judgment across distributed systems, APIs, workflow orchestration, search or storage, compute and execution, identity and permissions, or observability and reliability.
  • Infrastructure depth paired with product judgment: you can abstract complex systems into simple, durable primitives that other engineers and developers can build on.
  • Strong developer empathy and communication skills, including experience partnering with users, research teams, and product engineers to make fast-moving capabilities useful and dependable.
  • High agency and comfort operating in a fast-moving environment, with strong ownership of security, reliability, and operational excellence.

Skills

PythonGoRustTypeScriptDistributed SystemsAPIsWorkflow Orchestrationsearchstoragecomputeexecution environmentsidentity and permissionsObservabilityreliability

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